CWAC Encourages Planting of Hard White Winter Wheat

September 3, 2004

The Colorado Wheat Administrative Committee (CWAC) is encouraging wheat producers to plant Hard White Winter (HWW) wheat this fall. Hard white wheat is a new class of wheat that produces a wider variety of wheat food products than Hard Red Winter (HRW) wheat, such as Asian noodles, tortillas and Middle Eastern flat breads. It also has a higher flour extraction rate that is desired by flour millers.

"CWAC is trying to position HWW wheat to open new domestic and export markets and it is essential to increase the volume of production," said CWAC President Terry Swanson of Walsh. "One of our top priorities is to become the industry leader in producing and marketing HWW wheat." Colorado was second only to Kansas in the production of HWW wheat in 2004, with production of approximately 4.3 million bushels.

Yield advantages of HWW wheat strengthen the attractiveness of HWW wheat as a viable planting option. "Wheat producers should consider the yield performance of HWW wheat varieties such as Trego, Avalanche and Platte (irrigation) since they have shown higher yields than most HRW wheat varieties in our Colorado trials," said Colorado State University Wheat Breeder Dr. Scott Haley.

Although available HWW wheat varieties are more susceptible to sprout damage than most (but not all) HRW wheat varieties, persistent rains at harvest time when the wheat is ripe is not common on the Eastern Plains. "What happened this year with the sprout damage was a very rare occurrence," said Haley. "Specialists in Kansas reported that it had been over 40 years since sprouting had occurred to the extent it did this year where even HRW wheat varieties were sprouting."

The Hard White Wheat Incentive Program provides an incentive of 20 cents per bushel if HWW wheat grades #2 or better, with a minimum test weight of 58 pounds and less than 5 percent total defects (including sprout damage). Meeting these test weight specifications is generally no problem for Avalanche, Trego and Platte as these varieties have shown very high test weight patterns. The goal of this program is to increase the production of HWW wheat in the U.S. in order to become a reliable supplier to both the domestic and export markets.

CWAC is the producer elected board of control that administers funding from the producer approved assessment of one cent per bushel for educational, research and domestic and export promotion programs that increase the consumption and utilization of Colorado wheat.